Broken Sentences
by winterpolis
Summary: Hermione and Malfoy, Malfoy and Hermione. Life on the run isn't always a matter of escaping. Sometimes it's a matter of breathing and learning to feel again.


**pairing: **hermione x draco

**warnings:** angst. not much fluff, but if you read between the lines, you'll probably find it. also, a lot of italics and dashes. i actually don't know anymore what warning i should put. idk, guys, idk.

**track accompaniment: **six degrees of separation, the script || feel again, one republic. preferably an instrumental/piano cover one—make up your own lyrics, yeah?

**a/n:** i honestly don't know what i'm doing. i'm holed up in an oversized jacket with a mug of warm tea and my nana's week-old birthday cake and i should be studying for the finals i keep ranting about but _i'm not_. i feel asleep for twenty-six minutes and woke up with this plot bunny i can't seem to chase away and damn it all if i did't _try_. gosh this is pathetic.

**a/n 2: **sorry for any grammatical errors and such. i didn't bother proof-reading it. i have to finish studying. :/

* * *

"Granger,"

The rain was falling harder than it had been an hour ago outside, but that was before she'd fallen asleep curled against the wall opposite where he sat. Why was he in her territory now?

"Go away, Malfoy," Hermione moved away from the large hand wrecking her whole body with less-than-gentle shakes. Her voice sounded thick with sleep, and through her half-conscious state, she hated the way it sounded almost masculine.

"Granger,"

The shaking was more insistent, and with much effort, Hermione raised a heavy arm and peeled Malfoy's hand away from her bare arm. She pretended not to notice the sudden chill that swept past her at the sudden lack of warmth. _Not today_.

"I told you to go away, Malfoy. Why are you still in my territory?" her voice was clearer and not as deep with unconsciousness, but her eyes remained blind to the world, her back shunning it from touching her.

Somewhere behind her, Draco sighed impatiently. She could imagine his titanium orbs rolling in their sockets behind her closed eyelids and nearly smiled. Nearly.

(She knew he was behind her; she could feel that heat radiating off him—that heat she'd so badly been craving for since they found themselves stuck in this Merlin-awful cave. —_not today!_)

When he still didn't make a move to leave, she sighed. "I don't hear your sorry little ferret-feet trudging across the ca—"

Draco cut across her, words sharp like icicles against flesh. "We have to leave, Granger."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Just because you can go for _weeks _without rest doesn't mean I can. I just fell asleep for the first time in days, can't we just—"

"_Now_, Hermione. We need to leave now."

Her blood ran cold. He never _ever _used her given name unless he was desperate, worried, or in this case, scared out of his own skin for their lives.

"Okay." the word was uttered uselessly into the stale air of the cave as she got up, and they only had a moment to glance at each other before they began to cast spells that would eliminate any trace of them ever occupying the cavern.

Then they were running.

_He never lets me finish my sentences, dammit._

#

The forest trail was decisively treacherous for someone who walked upon it barefoot, Hermione Granger could attest to that.

Five hours into walking without her shoes and a thousand cuts and callouses later, she was bleeding, tired, and slowing down.

"They'll catch up to us at the rate you're going, Granger, which is, by the way, that of the slowest snail in the entire universe." Malfoy's voice drifted from the two feet distance ahead he had against her, and she glared at the back of his platinum head, though it wasn't as blonde as it should have been. It was dirty and unkempt, just like hers was, she was sure.

"Why don't you try walking without your shoes then, Malfoy? See if it's as easy and quick as you think it is." her words dripped with mercury, ready to poison anyone who would readily breathe it in.

Malfoy stopped in his tracks ahead of her. The warning bells rang in her head— _not good, not good_ it chimed, but she paid it no heed, turning her head high and waiting for his next rash decision.

A minute passed by with nothing but the hollow whispers of the post-sunset breeze, and she stood, shivering slightly, for what seemed like forever within a minute.

Then, he moved. He was stalking towards her. And even if she knew she was going to regret staying put later on, she ran. Why she ran she didn't know. She was already on the run with him, and now she was running _away_ from him.

(The two runnings were far from similar however; one was to escape, the other was to _breathe_. Which was which, she would never ponder upon too much to decide.)

She ran; he ran. Ironic how that's all they seemed to do these days. Her feet were bleeding profusely, but she refused to cast a quick spell to heal the wounds. They would open up later on again, anyway. So she kept running with her blood dripping, and—_wait. The trail. Oh Merlin, the trail! You foolish, foolish girl!_

Her feet stopped pounding against the soil, but her heart did not. It pounded against her ribcage, against her skin, begging for the release it's been needing since they first ran.

"M-malfoy?" her voice trembled as she breathed heavily.

"Giving up, Granger?" his voice sneered, and she knew he was but a tree trunk away.

"No. My feet. I…while we were running. The trail." Hermione's voice faded into the early evening's clutches, and she felt Malfoy chuckle emptily into the same clutches. "Sometimes I wonder who's smarter: you or me?"

Her blood boiled, every drop of it, even the ones that were seeping into the grass and twigs beneath her. "What's that supposed to mean, Fe—?"

"I cleaned up after you while you were running, Granger." Draco raised a brow at her as she met his gaze for the first time since she stopped running.

"Oh." her lips wrapped around the syllable, and his lips cracked into an almost-smile.

"How about when you were—"

"In front?"

She nodded.

"I was casting clean-up charms since you lost your shoes and had your first cut. But honestly, how did you lose your shoes?" Draco's eyes shone with something akin to amusement under the pale moonlight, and Hermione shook her head. "We were running. I tripped, the shoelaces were untied, we kept running, they slipped off."

Malfoy laughed, though in their ragged state, it sounded like a dying man gulping for what last memories of the world they could.

It was her turn to raise a brow. "Funny watching me bleed, Ferret?"

His laugh stopped almost immediately. She felt a pang of something like guilt deep in her glassed, cold heart. Laughter barely visited them these days. She shouldn't have taken that away from him.

She waited for the bitter retort—there was always one with Malfoy, and she held onto that—but it didn't come. Instead, a solemn smile graced his thin lips. _Hold on, a smile?_ "Your words, Beaver, not mine,"

A tiny, wry smile cracked her own face at his pet name.

(Since when did they have pet names and not insults?)

Their gazes met, and their smiles widened by a fraction. When the next wind blew past, the moment was over, and he was walking towards her. When he stopped in front of her and turned his back towards her front, she raised a brow. "Malfoy, what are you—?"

"Get on, Granger." Draco's voice cut through the night, and she laughed humorlessly. "Draco Malfoy offering to carry me on his back? Never thought I'd see the day."

From where she stood, she swore she could see him smile. How she knew with his back turned, she couldn't tell. She just _knew_.

(Weeks and maybe even months—they didn't count the seconds anymore like they used to—of running together had forged that.)

"Just get on already, would you?" Malfoy's back started to tremble with the effort of squatting for so long. A part of her swelled at the thought of Malfoy attending to someone else save himself for the first time in his life, and that someone was _her_ of all people. Maybe the world _was_ coming to an end.

"Oh, if you so insist, Ferret." Hermione's voice was laced with faux humility and shyness, and they both laughed, a real laugh this time, for the first time in forever.

Then her arms were wrapped around his neck gently, his hands supported her legs, he cast a spell on her feet to heal the bruises, and he was carrying the both of them further and further towards the edge of the forest.

And if either of them noticed how the exhaustion suddenly left them at the shared warmth and comfort, neither of them said anything.

#

There was an explosion. A flash of green, then red. Then they were running, a gash splitting her wrist open.

A band of three Death Eaters had found them, two of which they were able to immediately to _adava kedavra. _Anytime before the war the guilt would have swallowed her whole until she drowned, but survival was but a margin away from death to them both, and she couldn't care less anymore.

As the third Death Eater continued to chase them, she briefly closed her eyes and hoped this wasn't the end yet. _Not yet._

They were running for real this time, and she was scared. Malfoy's hand gripping hers as they ran was her sole comfort and anchor to the world, and she sank herself deeper into the now-roughness of his fingers.

A jet of green sparks flew in between their heads, and she forced the scream erupting in her chest down her throat. Shakily, she sent a hex flying the Death Eater's way. It missed.

They kept running. In between trees, under thick branches. Some time into the chase, they lost the Death Eater momentarily. But it was enough time for them to discover a hallow space beneath a tree, covered by enough moss and fallen branches not to be seen by a wandering eye.

"In!" Draco shoved Granger into the trunk. Then he started covering the opening.

"What…Malfoy, what are you doing?! Get in here!" her voice shook, her throat felt dry. So very dry.

"He'll find us if we stay in one place. I'll lead him further ahead—I can hear a river. I'll finish him off and come back." There was only a small hole left. Quick footsteps were amplified in the silent forest.

"Draco!" his given name on her lips was almost enough to make him stop. Almost. She only ever said it when she was desperate, overwhelmed, or in this case, scared.

"Stay here, Hermione, you hear? _Stay._" The hole was gone.

"Promise me you'll come back?" It wasn't even a question. It was a demand, and they both knew it.

A pause. The footsteps were coming closer.

"I promise."

The tears were falling freely down her cheeks, but she didn't care.

The footsteps came and went, and she knew he was fighting for his life—for the both of them. _But he promised!_

They both knew he was an excellent liar.

#

She stayed in the trunk for Godric knows how long. She didn't move. She barely breathed. All she did was stare and occasionally lose herself in sleep. And there were the moments that she cried herself helpless.

_So this is real fear._

Her thoughts strangled her and they came and went in a fashion: she knew it wasn't fear of getting caught that choked her. She knew it was something else. She knew it was the idea of losing him. She'd lost so many people; she couldn't afford to lose more. He was the only one left. Has been, for a while now. If she lost him…

She cried herself to sleep.

#

The early crack of dawn penetrated her heavy eyelids. She didn't make a move.

"Granger."

There was that same insisting shake. She didn't open her eyes. Godric knows this was just a dream and that voice wasn't real.

"Granger."

She felt the heat of the tears from where they were reined in behind her lids. _Go away._

A sigh. "Hermione."

An eye opened tentatively. Ragged patches of a jean pant. A familiar jean pant stained with dry blood and caked with soil.

"I promised, didn't I?"

Another eye opening.

Brown against gray.

A heavy breath.

An onslaught of tears.

Then tumbling words.

"Shhh, it's okay. It's over."

"I thought you were—when you didn't come back right away—I was so scared—I—"

"Shhh, Granger, you talk too much."

"Draco, I—"

"I know. I love you too."

Draco Malfoy may have been an excellent liar, but that didn't mean he _always_ lied. Sometimes he told the truth.

And the truth set them free.

* * *

**a/n 3:** aww hell, my tea's gone cold! and my stomach is grumbling. where's that cake?


End file.
